All the buzz (good/bad) and discussion over Dungeon World reminded me that it uses a system where the GM only describes stuff and dictates mechanical effects ("you take X damage"). All the dice-rolling is done by the players. This is an attractive streamlined approach, at least in the abstract, and I wonder what other games do it this way.

Off the top of my head, I think some versions of Unisystem do, right? (Any versions of Cortex?)

Also Heroquest 2.0, yes?

Ideally it would be nice to dump not only dice rolling but pretty much all record-keeping onto the players. Not, say, in the sense of making them track orc hit points, but in the sense of doing away with monster hit points altogether and abstracting their effect into simple "states".

I think it goes without saying that these sorts of systems don't strive for symmetry in how PCs and the rest of the world work mechanically. I think it might be similar to how some gamebooks* do things.

Anyway, it would be interesting to see some actual comparative rules-readings or play experiences.

*E.g. http://www.gamebooks.org/

Quote from: Arminius;697600All the buzz (good/bad) and discussion over Dungeon World reminded me that it uses a system where the GM only describes stuff and dictates mechanical effects ("you take X damage"). All the dice-rolling is done by the players. This is an attractive streamlined approach, at least in the abstract, and I wonder what other games do it this way.

Off the top of my head, I think some versions of Unisystem do, right? (Any versions of Cortex?)

Also Heroquest 2.0, yes?

Ideally it would be nice to dump not only dice rolling but pretty much all record-keeping onto the players. Not, say, in the sense of making them track orc hit points, but in the sense of doing away with monster hit points altogether and abstracting their effect into simple "states".

I think it goes without saying that these sorts of systems don't strive for symmetry in how PCs and the rest of the world work mechanically. I think it might be similar to how some gamebooks* do things.

Anyway, it would be interesting to see some actual comparative rules-readings or play experiences.

*E.g. http://www.gamebooks.org/

Tim Kirk's High Valor does this, as do my own StarCluster 3 games when using the StarWorm mechanic, and Levi Kornelsen's Ouroborous Engine. StarWorm and Ouroborous are rather incestuous as my StarPool mechanic inspired Levi's Ouroborous, which inspired my StarWorm mechanic...

Numenera does this (GM never rolls). Haven't had a chance to play it yet, but the system feels very streamlined and I like the concept as a GM.

Hope to play it sometime in the coming weeks though, so maybe I'll have more to say about it later.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;697610Numenera does this (GM never rolls). Haven't had a chance to play it yet, but the system feels very streamlined and I like the concept as a GM.

We had a good session of Numenera a week or so ago and the system worked well for us. It did speed things up for us and kept the players more engaged than usual throughout the turn.

My main criticism of this type of system is that you have relatively few "moving parts". It reduces the amount of bean counting, yes, but I find that you have fewer "emergent" interactions that might come of the dice being rolled by both sides. Something like Pendragon has a lot of cool or terrible things that might happen that aren't direct results of a player wanting something to happen, or the GM declaring that it happened.

Another troubling thing is how systems might resist you making one part of the world more "difficult" than another. In D&D, you could give the creatures on "Floor 2" more hit dice than they have on "Floor 1", but in streamlined games, players don't have the kind of vertical growth to deal with it. Numenera's use of "levels" for monsters as well as PCs might be a welcome change to this, but I have yet to play it.

gamerGoyf referred to Dungeon World as a 'Schrodinger's Box"; the world at large is mostly irrelevant until the players interact with it. Although you can do some prep to mitigate this, its still something that bugs me.

Icons defaults to this method but iirc also provides an option for the GM who prefers to roll.

Not a huge fan of this concept myself. I like rolling dice and have never really felt a pressing need to speed our games up.

Quote from: Shauncat;697616My main criticism of this type of system is that you have relatively few "moving parts". It reduces the amount of bean counting, yes, but I find that you have fewer "emergent" interactions that might come of the dice being rolled by both sides. Something like Pendragon has a lot of cool or terrible things that might happen that aren't direct results of a player wanting something to happen, or the GM declaring that it happened.

Another troubling thing is how systems might resist you making one part of the world more "difficult" than another. In D&D, you could give the creatures on "Floor 2" more hit dice than they have on "Floor 1", but in streamlined games, players don't have the kind of vertical growth to deal with it. Numenera's use of "levels" for monsters as well as PCs might be a welcome change to this, but I have yet to play it.

gamerGoyf referred to Dungeon World as a 'Schrodinger's Box"; the world at large is mostly irrelevant until the players interact with it. Although you can do some prep to mitigate this, its still something that bugs me.

If by "this type of system" you mean games where only the player rolls the dice, this is most definitely not true. In StarWorm and Ouroborous, for example, the GM sets the stakes to be pertinent to the situation and to the participants, and these can vary widely between conflicts, even if they are between the same types of participants.

I'm a fan of the player only rolls approach. I've been using it for a long while for my homebrew Fate games and of course does that too ICONS wit appraoch too so all in all I do most of my GMing "hands free".

The advantage is that it keeps the focus on the players which helps keep them engaged while lightening the load on the GM, the less things I need to take care of when I run the more I can focus on the things that matter.

Occasionally you will get a situation where it suddenly doesn't work, for instance actions between NPCs the outcome of which the players have a vested interest in. When that happens I have no trouble pick up the dice and making a roll myself, there is no percentage in being dogmatic about it. But those are edge cases.

Some GM just like to roll dice, it makes them feel more involved. That's cool too. For player only rolls is a winner.

As I recall, the designers of Legendary Lives (Marquee Press, 1990) took that approach. Link to author Joe's site offering a free PDF of the 2nd (1993) edition:http://www.hauntedattic.org/legendarylives.html

Quote from: Soylent Green;697625The advantage is that it keeps the focus on the players which helps keep them engaged while lightening the load on the GM, the less things I need to take care of when I run the more I can focus on the things that matter.

I think this is especially true in combat with a lot of weaker foes. Say 10 against 4 pcs.

In say, D&D, I would be rolling 10 rolls a round generally, and the pcs would be rolling 4 a round, 1 each (assuming that everyone is taking an action that requires a roll).

In Numenera, the GM rolls nothing, and each player is rolling only 3.5ish rolls on average. (1 "attack" and 2.5 "defense" rolls each round). It really spreads out the rolls a lot and no one person is rolling way more than everyone else.

That and it lets me stand while I GM... which I do a lot. I also talk with my hands... I'm fairly animated.

Quote from: Shauncat;697616My main criticism of this type of system is that you have relatively few "moving parts". It reduces the amount of bean counting, yes, but I find that you have fewer "emergent" interactions that might come of the dice being rolled by both sides. Something like Pendragon has a lot of cool or terrible things that might happen that aren't direct results of a player wanting something to happen, or the GM declaring that it happened.

Is this a commentary specifically on Dungeon World? In Cinematic Unisystem (like the Buffy and Angel RPGs), the players rolling is mathematically exactly equivalent to regular Unisystem. The only difference is when you are rolling for stuff that doesn't involve the PCs - like NPC-on-NPC fights. Personally, those are the sort of things that I don't roll much for anyway - I don't think that variation is important for changing the overall direction of the game.

Quote from: Shauncat;697616Another troubling thing is how systems might resist you making one part of the world more "difficult" than another. In D&D, you could give the creatures on "Floor 2" more hit dice than they have on "Floor 1", but in streamlined games, players don't have the kind of vertical growth to deal with it. Numenera's use of "levels" for monsters as well as PCs might be a welcome change to this, but I have yet to play it.

Even for Dungeon World, this doesn't make any sense to me. You give DW monsters more hit points, armor, and/or damage to make them more difficult. In Cinematic Unisystem, you can also change their combat score that modifies their to-hit rolls.

DW is all I have experience with, yes. I will look into all the systems being used as counterpoints to my post.

I am aware you can give monsters more armor, damage, or HP in DW to increase their difficulty, but I feel that's more for giving them "dramatic weight" than for giving the impression of a world that "scales". Which can be fine, it's not a criticism of DW or "only the players roll". Just my impression of one system's wheelhouse.

Quote from: Shauncat;697636DW is all I have experience with, yes. I will look into all the systems being used as counterpoints to my post.

I am aware you can give monsters more armor, damage, or HP in DW to increase their difficulty, but I feel that's more for giving them "dramatic weight" than for giving the impression of a world that "scales". Which can be fine, it's not a criticism of DW or "only the players roll". Just my impression of one system's wheelhouse.

In Numenera, everything has a Level from 1-10 (and some actions operate on a higher or lower level depending on the type.)

For instance, say a foot soldier type with a shield. He might be Level 3, Level 4 at Speed Defense.

The roll to defend against that enemy's is 9 or higher on a d20 (Multiply level * 3 for the target number)

The roll to attack the enemy would be 12 or higher on a d20 (Multiply speed defense level * 3 for the target number)

Everything can scale up and down. The thing you are talking about with DW isn't about GM never rolling, its about the fixed TNs for rolls.

Quote from: Shauncat;697636DW is all I have experience with, yes. I will look into all the systems being used as counterpoints to my post.

I am aware you can give monsters more armor, damage, or HP in DW to increase their difficulty, but I feel that's more for giving them "dramatic weight" than for giving the impression of a world that "scales". Which can be fine, it's not a criticism of DW or "only the players roll". Just my impression of one system's wheelhouse.

But wouldnt the two end up doing essentially the same thing?
In the DW case the DM made a choice to maintain the challenge or move forward the plot. In another games case the DM did what? Made a choice to maintain the challenge or move forward the plot? If he is just rolling on a encounter table then that may not give much impression of a world that scales either? More like a world of random that might be scaled or appropriate?

How do you mean scales in this case?

Quote from: Shauncat;697616gamerGoyf referred to Dungeon World as a 'Schrodinger's Box"; the world at large is mostly irrelevant until the players interact with it. Although you can do some prep to mitigate this, its still something that bugs me.

Except gG was flat-wrong about that; DW is no more of less "a 'Schrodinger's Box" than any other roleplaying game.